I am Professor Aronnax. My job is to study everything dead or alive under the sea. I see beautiful and ugly things down there. But there is one strange experience that stays in my mind like a nightmare.
It was 1867. Some seamen said that they saw a dangerous giant monster（怪兽） living in the cold water of the ocean. Some ships tried to find it and kill it, but they never returned.People said it looked like a whale.
I was famous because I was the writer of a book called The Mysteries of the Great Ocean Depths.When The Abraham Lincoln, the American ship-master,decided to leave and look for the monsters,she asked me to go with them. The idea was very exciting. I invited my friend Conseil to go with me.He always helps me to record the names and places of the wonderful strange sea animals that we find in the oceans of the world.He accepted the invitation and we got ready to go.
The Abraham Lincoln left New York on the 3rd of July, 1867.Five hundred thousand people were there to say goodbye.We sailed for three months and we never saw the monster once,so everyone on the ship started to believe that there was no monster. And then when we were 200 miles off the coast of Japan, it appeared. The monster looked as if it was asleep. We could see it because there was a strange light under the water.Then,a cannon（大炮） fired at the monster.A cannonball hit it, but it didn't move. Captain Farragut didn't know what to do.
"My God! If a cannon can't kill this monster, what can?"
Just then,I saw Ned Land, with his harpoon（鱼叉） in his hands, climbing to the front of the ship.Everyone watched him silently. I saw the harpoon leave his hand and hit the giant monster right in its back. Water shot out of the "wound". The strong wave by the monster knocked me right out of the ship into the dark cold ocean. (from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
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